Famous Art Quotes: Art Critics

“Don’t be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.”--- French Post Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne. Referred today as the father of modern painting, Cezanne whose art was misunderstood and discredited by the critics, exhibited little in his lifetime. Indeed it not until his later years, that his genius was acclaimed.

Artists, take head of his advice, and more wise words on art critics.

• "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.” --Dale Carnegie, also attributed to Benjamin Franklin
   
• "Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?" - Pablo Picasso
   
• "Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.” - Pliny the Elder
   
• "What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you." --Jean Cocteau
   
• "Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
   
• "To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product: the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experiences of shaping that artwork. The viewers' concerns are not your concerns (although it'd dangerously easy to adopt their attitudes.) Their job is whatever it is: to be moved by art, to be entertained by it, to make a killing off it, whatever. Your job is to learn to work on your work. -David Bayles & Ted Orland in Art & Fear
   
• "Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it."
  Salvador Dali
   
• "If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint."- Edward Hopper
   
• "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -Teddy Roosevelt

~Cynthia Padilla

Cynthia Padilla is sought out internationally for exhibitions, reviews, lectures and as a travel leader on sketching tours and retreats world wide. Traveling the world --- sketchbook in hand. Padilla has guided enthusiasts, even complete beginners, to sketch and draw with confidence!
 

Photo: Still Life with Apples-1893-94 Giclee Print by Paul Cezanne at Art.com